January 24th, a historical day

I started off January 24th like any other day. At 8:30 I headed off to meet Pastor Kabamba to get started. As we began to walk to Shituru he shared the awful news that a member of our church had died the previous day. She died from high blood pressure or so they say. Its so sad how many people die from things that are treatable. She was a wonderful lady in her early 40’s with a baby boy less than 2 years old who unlike many of the children here was thankfully not afraid of white people and actually insisted on me holding him whenever I came over. She had a great sense of humor and was an encouragement to everyone she met. I had visited her from time to time and knew she was sick but because they always said it was high blood pressure it never occurred to me that she would die especially not so soon.

It was difficult to shake the frustrations of death and illnesses in the third world because in Shituru we were visiting Da Ladin. She is the aunt of the former prostitute. It turns out the entire family is in very poor health and there is a deep problem with sexual sins like a generational curse. Da Ladin was the second wife to a man from Kasai. Apparently he decided he hated her even after 7 years of marriage and kicked her out. He threatened to steal their twin daughters and take them to Kasai to be raised by his first wife. That would of course mean that the mother would never see them again and that the girls would not be treated fairly by the other wife. She had also developed I’m guessing an allergy or something that caused her entire body to swell. It was so bad she couldn’t walk or open her eyes. She said the doctors had advised her to take antibiotics but she had no money. I bought her the medicine and since then the swelling has been steadily going down. The entire family came to church on Sunday. It was a beautiful sight to see so many people who had given up hope for things ever getting better and had decided to follow their own paths instead of the ways of Jesus returning back to the fold with a new glimmer in their eyes that said clearly they had found a glimmer of hope at last.

We walked and walked and walked all day long. We went all over the city visiting the sick, discouraged, and those seeking truth. We must have walked 15 to 20 kilometers but it was worth every step to share the gospel with people. My message for 2009 has come from the book of Joshua. In the places I preach weekly I’ve been taking story after story from the book to explain what a believer must do to walk in victory. For the people I met briefly I shared only Chapter 1:7-9. My message is simple the answer to walking in victory is guard yourself from the devil’s tactics of discouragement and fear which will prevent you from working from God, instead be strong and courageous ready to do the will of God. Study the Bible constantly and be careful to follow God’s will for your life as sin will open the door for the devil to destroy your life. It was funny after I had said it all day in broken Swahili it was difficult to explain it in English to my sister when I talked to her on the phone. I guess that’s a good sign.

In the midst of our walking around we began to hear people making the sounds of celebration and heard the wonderful news that General Laurent Nkunda, the notorious rebel leader in Eastern Congo, had been captured by Rwanda! Nkunda began his campaign around the same time the Second Congo War was finally finishing up. He took to stealing children for his army and doing unspeakable things to civilians to earn “respect”. To explain him in a word he was evil very evil. He contributed to the deaths of over a million people not by bullets alone but mostly disease that without his tactics and war would have lived. In less than the past year he caused well over half a million people to flee for their lives. He was evil and a huge determent to peace in Congo. I thank God he was captured. In Lubumbashi there was dancing in the streets, school was cancelled and so was work in honor of this victory.

It is an interesting thing to be in a country when a war ends. The celebrations here were all filled with skepticism because they have heard it all before. Ever since the First Congo War began the promise of peace has always been promised and many agreements signed and people captured but unfortunately never held up. You could see it in their eyes they hoped maybe just maybe this was it but their memories told them it probably wouldn’t last.

There is another problem brewing in Eastern Congo. The notorious Lord’s Resistance Army of Northern Uganda has for many years been hiding in various places in the jungle of Congo. Congo has been so volatile there was nothing it could do to stop the terrorists of its neighbor (who was by the way continually invading them to steal their gold). For the most part they hid there only until last year. This past year over 400 children have been abducted from Congo and over 500 civilian brutality murders with the ruthless tactics the LRA is notorious for.

I couldn’t help but reflect upon my day realizing it was a historical one. In so many ways a day of victory both through the ministry I accomplished that day and the nation accomplished by capturing such an evil rebel leader. It was encouraging and exciting to realize God is truly moving in Congo. The other depressing problems here cannot discourage me because that is exactly what the devil wants for people to believe the situation is hopeless. Instead like Joshua I have determined to be strong an courageous and even though only “Jericho and Ai” have been taken declare the whole land for the glory of God. God had already promised everywhere your foot treads will be yours. I guess I need to start walking 15 to 20 kilometers everyday.